Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution

By

Stephanie Simon

Updated March 23, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.

The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards, then...